


Never Far Apart

by little0bird



Series: Stolen Time [16]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: I'm so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 05:58:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20286538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little0bird/pseuds/little0bird





	1. One Short Sleep

Arthur woke up, yawned, stretched, and lazily scratched his stomach and chest. Molly was still curled up under the quilt, making Arthur smile. She still rose at six, even after their grandchildren had children of their own. 'Having a bit of a lie-in, before Harry and Ginny's lot descends on us?' he chuckled. Lily's youngest child was going to start his last year Hogwarts in a few weeks, and Molly had insisted on having all of them over for dinner. His smile faded slowly. 'Molly?' He reached over and gently shook her shoulder a little. 'Molly…?' His hand brushed over her cheek and he stilled, his heart pounding. 'You're cold,' he said in a small voice, drawing the quilt over her shoulder. Arthur spooned behind Molly, one of his hands covering hers. 'Molly…' he whispered, shuddering, unable to picture waking up the next morning without her, and unwilling to leave her alone.

Arthur had always assumed he would go first. That incident in the Ministry with Voldemort's snake had given him a healthy sense of his own mortality. He knew he should have died then, but didn't. It struck him as supremely unfair that Molly's turn came first. There was still too much left unfinished. Percy's Christmas jumper still dangled from her ancient knitting needles, half-done. There were still batches of biscuits to bake and pack into tins to send to their great-grandchildren that were still in school. The blanket for James' first grandchild hadn't been wrapped, and Liam's wife, Rachael, was due any day.

He held Molly tighter and squeezed his eyes shut, aware he was only delaying the inevitable.

Arthur didn't realize how much time had passed, but the morning sunlight had brightened into blinding afternoon. 'Dad?' Ginny crouched next to the bed. 'Dad…'

Arthur's eyes opened and he looked at his youngest child, suddenly cognizant of how old she really was. Her once-vibrant hair had faded into an indeterminate ivory and a fine web of lines bracketed her dark eyes.

Harry stood behind her, hair still messy, but iron grey. 'They're here… For…' he choked, staring wide-eyed at Molly.

Arthur nodded once, and unwound his fingers from Molly's hand, pressing a kiss to her cheek, before he sat up stiffly and accepted the worn dressing gown Harry handed him and belted his loosely around his middle and stood looking out the window overlooking the back garden at Molly's flowerbeds. 'What am I going to do without her?' he breathed, and Harry and Ginny knew he wasn't just talking about himself – he spoke for all of them.


	2. Echo Through the Ligh

'Liam!' Ginny grimaced as pain shot through her knees. 'Liam, this Cushioning charm isn't going to last much longer and I'm getting too damn old to talk through the Floo like this!'

Liam Potter knelt in front of his fireplace, cradling his son, David, in his arms. 'Keep your hair on, Gran,' he whispered. 'Rachael just went to sleep. Davy's teething.'

'Fussy, is he?'

'Just a little,' Liam replied with a grimace. 'This is the most he's been settled all day.'

'Poor lad,' Ginny murmured sympathetically. 'Perhaps he needs a distraction.'

Liam settled on the hearthrug and fixed his grandmother with a look. 'He's barely six months old, Gran. He hardly needs a distraction.' He smoothed the dark unruly hair over David's head and muttered, 'What do you want, Gran?'

'What makes you think I want something?' Ginny asked innocently.

'Because you have a way of telling us what to do in the form of a suggestion,' Liam snorted.

'Because Potter males are remarkably stubborn,' Ginny retorted. 'Just you wait until that one discovers he's got his own mind.' She smiled guilelessly at her eldest grandson, but his liquid, dark eyes merely narrowed. 'Oh, all right,' she huffed. 'Could you drop by the Burrow tomorrow afternoon?'

'Why?'

'To distract Dad,' she admitted.

'Is there something wrong with Grandda?' Liam asked worriedly.

'No… But we – Uncle Bill, Auntie Fleur, Uncle Charlie, Auntie Bronwyn, Uncle Percy, Auntie Penny, Uncle George, Auntie Katie, Uncle Ron, Auntie Hermione, your grandfather and I – need to discuss a few things, and –'

'And you need to distract him with something shiny so the lot of you can move him out of the home he's known his entire life and have him come live with one of you?' Liam drawled sarcastically in a manner reminiscent of James in his adolescent heyday.

'Don't speak to me in that tone, young man,' Ginny chided heatedly. 'You're not too old for me to hex.' She sighed. 'It would take a pry bar to remove him, anyway. No, we just want to arrange times to come check on him after lunch. Make sure he's eating and the like.'

Liam bit his lip and looked at Ginny. 'Fine…'

* * *

Ron looked around the long table.  _ When did Charlie's hair get so white…? At least he still has his _ , he thought, glancing at Charlie's thick mane of hair.  _ Bill's is looking a bit thinner on top, poor sod. The only truly vain one out of all of us about his hair and it's thinning… _ His gaze turned to his left, where Harry always sat.  _ If it weren't for those lines around his eyes and mouth, you'd think he was James' age… _ Harry kept his eyes resolutely on the top of the table under his interlaced hands, avoiding the stove where Molly usually would have bustled about, fretting about the amount of food they left on their plate.  _ Took Mum's death awfully hard _ , Ron mused.  _ Only mother he ever knew, though… _ Someone was speaking to him. 'What?'

'What can Dad actually cook?' Percy asked.

'Simple stuff,' Ron grunted. 'He won't starve if we come by at irregular intervals.'

'We'll check on him every couple of days then.'

'Just don't come at the same time,' Bronwyn muttered.

'Why?' George asked vaguely. He, like Harry, had taken Molly's death rather badly.

'Because we don't want him to get suspicious,' Katie murmured soothingly. 'That we think he can't look after himself.'

'Right…' George seemed to shrink into himself a little.

'We know he can manage the laundry,' Penny stated. 'I don't think even Arthur had a six-month supply of socks…'

Harry suddenly pushed his chair away from the table and slipped out of the kitchen, muttering something about seeing if Arthur needed tea. He took a deep breath as the door swung shut behind him. Arthur cradled David with a wistful, albeit somewhat sad, expression on his face, while Liam hovered next to them. Harry knew he was wishing Molly were there to coo over their latest great-great grandchild. It was the same expression he'd worn each time his own children had been born and later their children, when he'd wished, yet again, his parents could have seen them. Harry eased down on the sofa on Arthur's other side. 'How is it, then?' he said softly. David grinned gummily at him, his blue eyes, echoes of Arthur's, crinkling at the sight of his great-grandfather.

'They're discussing how best to look after me, aren't they?' Arthur asked casually talking to the baby, rather than either Harry or Liam.

'Something like that,' Harry affirmed.

Arthur tickled David, making him giggle. 'Well, if it makes them feel better to do something…'

'You're taking it well,' Liam stated. 'Gran would hex anyone within a twelve-foot radius if they tried to do that behind her back.'

'Your grandmother's always been rather independent,' Arthur chuckled. 'Just like her mother.'

Liam's face grew stricken. 'Sorry, Grandda…'

'Ah, no worries, then, Liam. I spent more than eighty years with Molly. Can't act as if it never happened.' He handed David to Harry. 'I think I'm going to have a bit of a kip. Come wake me when you lot head home, eh?' He stiffly rose from the sofa. For the first time in his life, he  _ felt _ old.

Arthur climbed slowly up the stairs, gripping the banister tightly. They tilted to one side and he crumpled to the floor.

* * *

Arthur rolled the plug in his pocket between his fingers. He pulled it out and marveled at the molded plastic. This one was unlike the others he had. Instead of the prongs that sometimes painfully poked him in the leg, it had openings in its face. 'Why would it need those?' he asked aloud, thumbnail tracing their outlines.

It was then that he saw her.

Just as she was the day he realized he was hopelessly arse-over-elbow in love with her. Dumbledore had allowed the Dueling Club to hold an exhibition, and she had calmly sent a simple, yet effective hex at her opponent, rendering him unable to continue, then serenely polished her wand on the sleeve of her robes. She barely came up to his chest, and despite her air of competence, she looked frazzled. Her robes were slightly too big, as if her parents had bought them that way on purpose, in case she grew during the year. Her hair was a frizzled halo of bright red curls that more often than not escaped her attempts to the tame it into a plait. But her wide brown eyes sparked with laughter when one of her older brothers mounted the dais to have a go with her. They were the color of the aged Firewhisky he'd tasted at his great-grandfather's funeral over the summer hols.

It was Molly before the children came along. Before the first war etched a permanent worry line between her brows. Before the second added the shadow of losing a child.

And she was in front of him, with one hand outstretched.

Arthur looked down at it dumbfounded. Her lips moved, but he couldn't hear was she was saying over the rush of blood in his ears. The murmurs of the others – of their children long past birth – echoed in his bones.

The murmurs rushed over him in lazy river currents. In an eddy of silence he could hear her clearly. 'You can do what you like,' Molly told him. 'You can either turn round and go back to them…'

'Or?' he asked quietly.

She didn't reply, but merely gestured with her hand.

Arthur turned slightly. He could see them clustered around his body, lying on the first landing. Bronwyn worked feverishly, chanting spells and incantations, desperately trying to keep him there. George huddled in the corner, almost shielding himself behind Katie. Percy wept shamelessly, while Charlie's face didn't betray any emotions at all, but that had always been his way. Bill stood behind Ginny, one hand on her shoulder, as if she were the only thing holding him up. Harry clutched David to his chest, frozen at the bottom of the stairs, unwilling to believe the scene unfolding before him.

It was Ron who whispered, 'Stop…' – his fingers splayed over a photograph of them during their fiftieth anniversary party. 'Let him go…'

It was all the encouragement Arthur needed. He resolutely turned his back on them and grasped Molly's small hand in his own, blind to the flash of light that severed his connections to a more corporeal world.


End file.
